Sunshine Laws may seem more important to a newspaper reporter than they would be to the average citizen — until the average citizen wants to know what happened at a crime scene or a crash.

Or until the incident labels the person a “victim.”

Criminal background information is easily found online on Stark County’s justice information website at www.starkcountycjis.org. Just click on “online case docket.” More information may require a trip to the local courthouse.

Incident information is available and open for public view at any police or sheriff’s department depending on where it occurred.

The Stark County Jail maintains records of everyone booked into the facility, which is operated by the county sheriff. Those arrested are photographed and their personal information is listed on a record known as a “Form 8.” The information includes a name, age, address, time, date and location of arrest, arresting agency, charges and, usually, a summary of events that led to the arrest. Each also contains the charged suspect’s next-of-kin information, a brief physical description, a list of tattoos or scars and their photo.

Repository reporters use some of this information to compile crime stories and reports.

PUBLIC ACCESS

Anyone can request to see these forms under Ohio’s Sunshine Laws, just as anyone can go to a police or sheriff’s department to peruse reports of car crashes.

Crash reports contain information ranging from the names and addresses of everyone involved to vehicle and insurance details to the investigating officer’s investigative findings. Citations, actions each driver took before the crash and the person’s physical condition after the wreck are listed, from “no injury” to fatality. The reports also typically contain a diagram of what happened.

While the initial report of an incident is expected to be available for public viewing, “investigatory information” is protected by law from being released to the public until after a case is disposed of or handled at the court level.

Chief Deputy Rick Perez of the Stark County Sheriff’s Department said deputies either hand-write or type incident-report information on laptop computers in their cruisers. The typed information is downloaded and a “public version” and the law-enforcement version of the report is generated. The public version differs because investigators cannot release information such as Social Security numbers, the names of uncharged suspects and other investigatory information, he said.

Such investigatory information could include “witness statements, information that identifies a possible suspect and details of the crime that only the victim and the suspect would know,” Perez said. This protected information is “redacted” — or blackened out — by law.

Information that was available 10 years ago isn’t the same information available today.

It’s more detailed, but it also takes longer to get.

A decade ago, most incident reports were single page, handwritten reports. They contained the time, date, location and nature of call and perhaps a few details of what the complainant said happened.

Most departments used the summary Uniform Crime Reporting system.

Stark County’s law enforcement authorities, since 2004, have been using the NIBRS or the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System. The system collects statistics and data. It involves a different type of form that seeks specific — yet more — information, such as whether the incident was gang-related, a domestic dispute or domestic violence and whether it was a hate crime.

A hand-scrawled page or two once considered to be a complete report now could involve a detailed seven or eight pages — typed into a computer system.

Lt. Tim George of the sheriff’s department said deputies typically file their reports on laptop computers in their cruisers as part of the NIBRS process. The information is uploaded into the system, and word-processing clerks at the sheriff’s department type the information onto the forms. The forms are checked by supervisors and then, if approved, scanned into the system.

The whole process could take a few days. And if the investigation is on-going, the public still may not see the report until the investigation is over. Bigger cases such as those involving more violent crimes could take three or four days for the deputy to get the narrative or summary of the incident to the clerks.

“It’s a time-consuming process,” George said.

Deputies usually take an estimated 20 or 30 reports a day, and about six clerks process the information, George said.

Citizens also may file their own reports online.

The sheriff’s website contains a method by which victims can file reports for crimes ranging from telephone harassment to burglary. Such reports are typically not life-threatening emergencies and reporting them online saves residents money and frees up deputies to respond to more critical calls.

“If it’s something major, we want people to call us,” George said.

CANTON POLICE REPORTS

Canton police also want a phone call if there’s an emergency. Reports of incidents that are not life-threatening events still are taken over the phone.

Incident reports are available for public view at the police department’s records room.

The speed with which they are available is rapid in comparison with many other departments. Officers bring in their reports at the end of their shifts and sometimes throughout the day to be reviewed by supervisors.

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“A report is taken, it’s reviewed by a supervisor and it goes to the records room,” said Canton Police Chief Bruce Lawver. Requests to see reports are typically made at the records room, down the hall from the main desk.

“When it comes to the Sunshine Law, we’re versed on it,” Lawver said, adding that questionable requests are referred to the city’s legal department.

Requests that are too broad require a lot more work to fulfill. If someone, for example, asks for “all the theft reports for the northwest end,” Lawver said, “That’s unrealistic and has to be more defined and (we need to know) for what purposes. If it is a large-scale type thing, like research or public interest,” then it would be no problem. It just takes longer to gather the information, the chief said.

Copies of incident and accident reports in person are 10 cents a page. Requests through the mail are $2 with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Arrest reports are $1 for each individual. Citations are 10 cents and dispatch logs are $1, the records clerks said.

The city’s records room boasts a staff of seven clerks, according to Canton’s website at www.cantonohio.gov. Incident report forms also are available on the website, but the forms are not actually police reports. The information can be taken to the police department or phoned in.

Like other police and sheriff’s departments, officers type their reports into a cruiser computer. The records room clerks type the supplementary report to each incident, and like at the Stark County sheriff’s department, some of that falls under the category of investigatory information.

But the initial report, “is public record,” Lawver said. “There might be some things that are redacted, like an uncharged suspect. It’s defined in the Ohio Revised Code.”